Abusing the Megaphone

Nobody enjoys being slandered. A besmirched reputation, no less than a black eye, arouses the urge to fight back. However, thirsting for vengeance is dangerous, even when the grievance is just. A healthy desire to restore your good name can be easily upstaged by an undisciplined thrill at shaming your adversary.

For the much-maligned Family Research Council (FRC), it is hazardous to navigate these waters. The FRC is outspoken in its support for biblical marriage and sexuality. The group routinely endures scurrilous accusations of bigotry. It's not hard to fathom why FRC might wish to seize any opportunity for settling scores with ideological foes.

We believe most of the FRC's positions, policy statements, and goals are on target. But we have major reservations about FRC's methods for public engagement. Too often, its leaders traffic in flatly untrue statements. (Among FRC president Tony Perkins's claims: President Obama hates Christianity; his administration excludes Christians; and the military, under his command, bans Bibles and embraces bestiality.)

We can understand why Perkins lashed out at an obnoxious rival, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), in the wake of an attempted massacre at FRC's Washington, D.C., headquarters. Once a venerable civil-rights organization, the SPLC has disgraced itself in recent years by branding the FRC an anti-homosexual "hate group." Certainly, the SPLC deserves to have its falsehoods rebutted. But the FRC erred in eagerly claiming, so soon after the attack, that the SPLC had given the gunman "a license to shoot."

About the would-be mass murderer's motives, there can be little dispute. The suspect, 28-year-old Floyd Corkins, allegedly ...

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